Today we’re starting to roll out the official release of the update to Xbox LIVE subscribers around the world. To ensure a stable release, this will be a gradual deployment across subscribers and regions over the course of the next week. Our initial deployment will reach approximately three million consoles worldwide, with additional users being updated over the course of a couple weeks. Don’t panic if you don’t see an immediate update, just keep checking back in.

In this update, you will see the following features.

Refreshed Xbox 360 Dashboard. We’ve updated the UI with a few things, including an updated layout with more tiles, a combined TV & Movies channel and, in the US, a Sports destination.

Internet Explorer for Xbox. With Internet Explorer on Xbox, you can easily find and view internet content on the biggest screen in the house, including HTML5 videos.

Recommendations and Ratings. Recommendations will allow you to discover new favorites, generated based on a number of variables including the content you previously viewed, what your friends are consuming and what is most relevant and popular with our Xbox community.

You can now rate content yourself and also see Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

Pinning. Pinning lets you personalize the dashboard by saving your favorite movies, TV shows, games, music, videos and websites right to the home screen. It’s as easy as opening an app or a favorite movie and clicking “pin.”

Recent. Previously called Quick Play, the Recent view gives you a list of movies, games, apps or other types of content that you most recently accessed on the console.

Enhanced Search. The last Xbox LIVE update brought Bing voice search to Xbox so you could use voice to search for movies, TV shows, actors, directors and artists. This year we added genre search to the list, so now you can search for action, comedy, romance, drama or sci-fi. Bing voice search now includes results for video across the Web, including YouTube.

What about Xbox SmartGlass? That’s coming too, but not until Windows 8 launches on October 26th. When the Xbox SmartGlass app launches on tablets, PCs and smartphones, it will include key foundational experiences for interacting with your Xbox 360, such as dashboard and app navigation and Internet Explorer control, like text input, scrolling and pinch and zoom.

Yesterday, we shared all the details about Xbox Music, our brand new digital music service. Xbox Music begins rolling out today on Xbox 360, it will launch with free streaming on all Windows 8 PCs and tablets on October 26th and Windows Phone 8 as devices arrive in market. Xbox Music combines all the different ways people love to enjoy music, creating the ultimate all-in-one music service.

So I hear that in order to use the web browser you have to have a Gold subscription.

Paying to use a browser, wow...

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oh no, its worse than that....

in M$'s eyes they are asking us to PAY to utilize HARDWARE we ALREADY purchased in order to use a SERVICE (internet connection) we ALREADY pay for.... i just feel like M$ thinks they deserve a fair slice of the pie that they have nothing to do with, they just see it across the room and are like, i wanna slice!

in M$'s eyes they are asking us to PAY to utilize HARDWARE we ALREADY purchased in order to use a SERVICE (internet connection) we ALREADY pay for.... i just feel like M$ thinks they deserve a fair slice of the pie that they have nothing to do with, they just see it across the room and are like, i wanna slice!

PS3 doin it right, PC doing in BEST!

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yes PS3 is doing it right............. atleast Xbox doesn't get hacked so massively users credit card and user information are taken, and online is down for 3 months.

seriously, how many people buy a live account just for netflix or IE? i know you have to be a member to use them, but its not its standout feature. the biggest pull for me is the cross game party chats. i know i could have that in a pc as well...but i also enjoy forza4 and some of the arcade games as well as halo series...and its turn it on and play, and my pc is in the living room too, too much hassle either dealing with wires or flaky wireless keyboard and mouse...so yah...whatever

What about Xbox SmartGlass? That’s coming too, but not until Windows 8 launches on October 26th. When the Xbox SmartGlass app launches on tablets, PCs and smartphones, it will include key foundational experiences for interacting with your Xbox 360, such as dashboard and app navigation and Internet Explorer control, like text input, scrolling and pinch and zoom.

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I don't understand, are they saying the SmartGlass App won't be released until October 26th? Cuz I have it on my Windows 8 laptop right now. I'll have to see when I get home if it will work after I update my Xbox.